Monthly Archives: May 2012

More than 278 million mobile devices lie idle or deactivated in the United States, and nearly half are smartphones, according to consultants at Compass Intelligence.

Most of those devices are destined for the recycling heap, but as for the others, that’s cash sitting neglected in drawers, according to an article in The New York Times. Beats by Dr. Dre Studio headphones that sell for $270 new could be worth $200 used. A Wi-Fi-only 16-gigabyte iPad 2 costing $400 new could fetch $300 or more. See how to sell them for the highest price.

Hope for Innovation Is Found in the Cloud

Innovation isn’t dead, it just moved to the cloud, according to GigaOM.

“Somewhere in between Pinterest and biotech, startups are using the cloud to make enterprise software available as a service and disrupt the business models of the very companies that helped build Silicon Valley,” Harris writes.

Even though social media companies may dominate the startup landscape, they’re part of a fundamental change in the way people communicate with each other thanks to cloud-based computing resources and the ubiquity of powerful mobile devices.

GigaOM plans to talk more on this subject at the upcoming Structure conference in San Francisco.

President Wants Government Agencies to Focus on Mobile Apps

President Barack Obama has ordered all government agencies to offer more of their services in the form of mobile apps, according to Mashable.

A new memo called “Digital Government: Building a 21st Century Platform to Better Serve the American People” requires each agency to make at least two services, used by the public, available on mobile devices within 12 months.

“For far too long, the American people have been forced to navigate a labyrinth of information across different government programs in order to find the services they need,” says the memo.

“Americans deserve a government that works for them anytime, anywhere, and on any device,” Obama said in a statement.

Mobile App Bump Can Now Push Photos to Your Desktop

Bump Technologies launched a new website feature, allowing Bump’s mobile app users the ability to share smartphone photos to their computers by physically bumping the phone against the PC keyboard, according to AllThingsD.

The photos are hosted online, and users can choose to download the images to their hard drive or share them using a short URL. Previously, Bump’s mobile app allowed for sharing photos and contact information between mobile phones, but not directly to a computer. Find out more about it here.

Vacation anxiety. For small-business owners, it’s a reality (and a real summertime bummer). In fact, more than 2/3 of small-business owners stress out while on vacation, according to a recent study by Intuit.

So, how will you cope when it comes time to relax?

Let’s look at some key tips and tricks to thwart vacation anxiety — while still keeping things running smoothly back at the home office.

1. Informing Your Public “Vacation” Means Actual Downtime

No shame in taking a break. Without a chance to recharge, you aren’t running your small business at your best. The key to preventing a mid-vacation slip-back — meaning that day you start office-ing from your beach-side bungalow — communication. “If people don’t know you’re on vacation, chances are they’ll keep on hounding you or feel slighted that you haven’t returned an e-mail or call,” Mike Pugh, of j2 Global, said. “Simply letting people know you’re out is one of the best ways to cut yourself some slack and enjoy your time off.”

2. Leave a Lieutenant in Your Place

Your employees are the people that you count on while you’re away. Make sure you pick the person (or people) that are going to be the face of your small business during your vacation. Give them the information they’ll need to work autonomously. Advise your other staff members of this individual’s new temporary authority. You may even prompt a long-term transformation at your business: the challenge of leading while the boss is away can be a stretch role that transforms a good employee into a great asset.

3. Alright, It’s OK to Office from Vacation (But Just a Little)

Set a morning schedule of 30 minutes on e-mail. Being clear about when and for how long you’re available is the key to keeping your work time in check. If you manage the expectations of your employees and clients, they’ll be less likely to try to wrestle you from your barbecue.

4. Your Phone is (Still) Your Lifeline

More than half of the small-business owners polled by Intuit said that keeping their cell phones on them allowed them to feel better, to know they could keep some connection to the office. So, sure, keep your phone around but get some help from back home on what calls to take and when. Mike Pugh of J2 Global suggests using cloud-based tools for tasks such as checking and sending documents as well as handling faxes.

But mainly: get the break you need. Go back refreshed.

Have tip about how to handle vacation anxiety as a small-business owner? Tell us about it in the comments section, and, on behalf of worrying owners everywhere, thanks!

One of the world’s oldest professions is moving to the cloud. No, not that oldest profession; we’re talking about accounting here!

The forecast is this: if the new wave of cloud-based accountants have their way, soon will be gone the days of small-business owners hauling dollies of documents into an old-school brick-and-mortar office.

In fact, in a new study from Xero, one online accounting software provider for accountants and small businesses, 3 in 10 accounting professionals plan to move their clients online this year alone. Xero definitely has an iron in that fire, but the accountants presumably answer as they will.

Let’s take a look at the phenomenon, where it’s at right now, and the future of the idea.

Cloud Accounting: What It Means for Your Business

Accounting in the cloud is changing the pace and immediacy of how a company’s financials are tracked and accessed. Cloud computing not only reduces the amount of physical hardware a small business needs, it also makes key information easier to use.

“You can get a CPA who has access to your accounting data 24/7,” said Nicholas Bird, a partner and accountant at Lucid Books of Utah — he also advises Xero on its accounting front.

Bird is already using the cloud to accelerate his clients’ understanding of their money.

“You can have a phone conversation about money, in realtime, that most small business won’t have right now because it’s a big hassle,” he said.

The labor-intensive spreadsheet crunching of pre-cloud tools may soon be history. Bird pointed out several other benefits, too.

— Time Saving: No more end-of-tax-year aggregation and computation. Keep your cloud-based accountant up to date constantly. No more crunch-time, come March and April.

— Cost Saving: Your accountant’s cloud-enabled process eliminates a lot of the clerical work associated with physically moving data from your world to theirs. Never again will they need to take your business’s copy of QuickBooks with them to do the work!

— Efficiency: “I can spend 90 percent of my time doing work,” said Bird. “As opposed to spending all my time on logistics and saying things like: ‘Hey, you didn’t send a file or a password.’”

Getting Started: Cloud Accounting Apps

There are numerous ways to move your small-business accounting to the cloud. You might choose Wave Accounting, or Kashoo. The options are multiple.

One development that’s ongoing, said Bird, is that cloud-based app providers are seeing the advantages of sewing together whole packages of small-business oriented services.

For example, in May 2012, Xero acquired WorkFlowMax — a complete suite of business-management tools that the company can now incorporate into its extant accounting packages.

“Right now, it’s still somewhat small but it’s only going to get bigger,” Bird said of cloud accounting. “It’s kind of still about building up the ecosystems. It’s going to continue to get better because different companies are integrating these systems together. That’s where I see it going.”

From Bluetooth headsets to SD cards, and even cameras and phones, it’s getting easier to misplace things, even in a home office.

To be fair, my home office and adjacent hallway space is, well, enough of an Over-Clutter Central that even largish things — like notebook computers — can stay hidden if I’m not careful.

But it’s even worse for the small techno-doodads, both the ones I use daily, and the ones I use infrequently.

The first instance of this trend was close to a decade ago, when a 1GB IBM MicroDrive (a CF-card sized hard drive, about half an inch squared by one-eighth of an inch) went AWOL. “How can I misplace a gigabyte?” I wondered, once I realized I couldn’t find it. (This was back in the day when a gigabyte was a significant amount of storage, and not cheap — this 1GB Microdrive was about $340. Now, of course, solid-state CF cards are about two dollars per gigabyte up through 32GB, you can get a professional-photographer-class 128GB CF card for about $600, and 256GB CF cards should be available — not cheaply — by summer 2012.)

My cell phone was the next major offender. I finally decided that, like my glasses, I needed a standard place to put it when I wasn’t carrying it, and, a few years later, dedicated a small box to “stuff that goes in my pockets.”

This strategy has, for the most part, helped me keep track of my cell phone.

But it’s not always good my Bluetooth headsets – they’re a little too small for that pile, so I’ve started a separate, smaller box more or less just for them.

Nor has it helped for my pocket digital cameras, which I don’t use as often. Even worse are their associated AC adapters/battery chargers and cables. Some of these have spent up to a year in hiding. Again, creating a dedicated box is helping — when I remember to use it.

Then there’s the pile of flash drives, SD cards, and other storage media. Again, a dedicated box helps — to some extent.

The worst offender, and biggest nuisance, is cables-and-chargers. Regular USB cables, no problem, I’ve got lots of those. But there’s at least three smaller-size USB cable plugs used for headsets, cameras, and other devices. I know I have lots of each…but where?

Notebook accessories, too, continue to plague me. I don’t have a lot of this, but I don’t some of the accessories that often. My external CD/DVD drive, for example, which recently went on a three-month vacation near my desk. Dedicating a notebook carry-bag to the machine helps keep some of this together.
Part of the challenge is whether I’m solving by category or activity. I’ve got a few small bags I take on trips, with USB adapters, chargers and the like. (I know, a medium-size box marked “Tech Travel Stuff” would be a big help here.)

Another part of the challenge is that, like travel bags for clothes and toiletries, my tech travel needs keep shifting and evolving. Two years ago, I was still using my Nokia “dumbphone.” The only accessories were a wall charger and a car charger. Now, with an iPhone and iPad, I’ve got a handful of accessories to take with me. But as the tech I use changes, so do the associated piles of cables, chargers, accessories, and whatnot.

I also have additional challenges that most people don’t: as a technology journalist who does some reviewing, I’m surrounded by a sometimes-depressing sludge of trial devices and left-over cables, plus, from trade shows, all the free USB flash drives, cables, hubs and whatnot given away at the booths.

One answer, in theory, is to continue to clean and purge. But a surprising selection of that older stuff still comes in handy. And cleaning and organizing takes time. I enjoy it, but it takes time. Plus I have to remember what I did.

So, like many, for affordable things, I often end up buying another of whatever it is. Or I spend an hour or two excavating my desk or digging through my closet.

Probably the most important lesson I’ve learned is to LABEL EACH AC POWER ADAPTER WHEN I GET IT. Not necessarily for the USB ones, but all others. Especially for notebooks.

OK, and to have a place for each thing or category, and to put stuff away in the same place each time. And to keep getting rid of stuff.

If you’re like me, you probably hate attending business meetings. Luckily, a number of useful Internet-based tools can help workgroups schedule and run them more effectively. All of the tools here work within most popular Web browsers, and most of them are available for free or for fairly low monthly fees. The challenge is in understanding which tool suits a particular situation, because not every meeting is held under the same circumstances. Let’s look at some of the differences.

Synch Your Calendars

Certainly the most common situations are those where you want to synchronize a common calendar, such as between someone’s PDA and his Microsoft Outlook desktop, or between a boss’s calendar and an assistant’s. Many services can make sharing calendars between work team members (or even between family members or friends) easier. Both Google Calendar (shown below) and Yahoo Calendar offer free calendar sync, and numerous other products–including Apple’s iCal for its computers and iPhones, along with NuevaSync–work with both services. BusySync and Spanning Sync also can synchronize Apple’s iCal calendars with Google Calendar.

Let Clients Setup Their Own Appointments

What if you want your clients or any other people not employed by your company to book your time directly? In the long-ago past, appointment secretaries would be in charge of the boss’s calendar and would set up meeting times with pencil and paper. Now you can point clients and outside colleagues to self-service appointment Web sites, such as BookFresh, Tungle.me or TimeDriver. These sites can display your staffers’ free and busy times, as well as what remaining time “inventory” is available for appointments. They also send out e-mail notifications, and they don’t require any special software beyond a Web browser to confirm the appointment. You can easily adjust the schedule when you are going out of town or are otherwise unavailable, too. These services are available for a reasonable cost: TimeDriver has a free 90-day trial and is $30 a year thereafter; BookFresh offers three different plans, including a free one that allows two monthly bookings. Tungle (shown below) is free for the moment.

Set Up a Common Meeting Time

How about a situation where you want to arrange a common meeting time for people coming from different companies? A meeting organizer could send out an e-mail notification with a series of possible open times, and ask each participant to check off which of those times work for them. But if you have ever tried to organize this kind of meeting, you know how quickly you can get buried under all the back-and-forth e-mail responses.

The free services SetMeeting.com (from Meeting Agent) and Doodle.com are useful in this respect. SetMeeting.com’s biggest weakness is that once you initiate the process it doesn’t allow you to change the meeting location without canceling and starting from scratch. Doodle, which is less sophisticated and has fewer features, is really more of a polling device to help you find a common time; but you may find it attractive if that’s all you wish to do.

As you can see, there are a variety of simple websites that can be used to enhance your meetings. Now if only there was an app that could make the actual meetings shorter.

Cloud computing allows you to access and manipulate complex corporate software on a relatively simple mobile device. Several leading cloud providers say this approach can be almost 70 percent cheaper than buying and running your own servers. While that percentage is dependent on pricing and several other factors, there’s little doubt the cloud is changing the way businesses are run and how information is accessed.

Running your business in the cloud not only frees up cash, it also shortens your in-office hours, giving you time and space to think outside the box, perhaps using that time to coin a phrase to replace the overused, beaten-to-a-pulp “outside the box.”

So now that you’ve freed yourself from the constraints of your office, what to do with your newly earned mobility? Take in the matinee showing of The Avengers? Fulfill that promise to yourself to spend more time in that old-man bar around the corner?

While saving time and money might be the first and second reasons to turn to the cloud, they’re just the tip of the iceberg.
Here are just a few of the not-so-obvious benefits of running your business in this brave new mobile world.

Crush the Competition

Sure, they’re a nice couple and have been in business for more than 50 years. Customers seem to like them, and who wouldn’t, with their folksy talk and old-fashioned phrases? No doubt about it: They’re a couple of cards.

The problem is they’ve been steadily taking market share, and for that, they must go.

Your new-found mobility allows you to stake out a competitor’s parking lot to gather intel and devise your next foray into espionage. It also allows you the time to find a good lawyer to explain what you were doing in their parking lot at 3 a.m.

Feeling Groovy

It allows you to work anywhere with a WiFi connection such as the Golden Arches or that hippie bookstore. This allows you the creative space to formulate your next great product or service.

Fact: Some of this century’s greatest thought leaders do their most profound thinking in hippie bookstores (in fact, “outside the box” originated in one).

Fact: That’s not really a fact.

Is There Anything Else I Can Help You With Today?

More personal customer service is sure to arise as you embrace your new mobility. Pop in on a customer. See if they need any orders filled or snafus unraveled. After polishing off the last of their donuts and pestering the receptionist, don’t overstay your welcome. Be polite when you’re asked to leave. Be sure to get your parking validated.

Hover ‘Round

Your out-of-office experience will allow you to see how your staff operates in your absence.

Productivity up? Cash rolling in? Chalk it up to your frequent visits to key customers and the savings realized from going to the cloud.

Surely it has nothing to do with your employees being free from your frequent meetings and over-the-shoulder hovering.

In all seriousness, having the ability to run your business while on the go has numerous benefits. Better work-life balance, the ability of resolve problems day or night, and the oft-mentioned cash savings are just a few. Exploring how to enhance your business with mobility is time and money well-spent.

According to a recent survey we conducted, over 90% of entrepreneurs and small business owners feel cloud-based backup could help their business the world’s most trusted provider of data protection and availability for consumers and businesses. The survey revealed that a mere 15% of small companies actually use online backup to protect their business.

Approximately two-thirds of the businesses surveyed do have some form of backup, but most of these onsite methods, such as tape or DVDs, are antiquated and susceptible to failure in the event of an on-site disaster. Other studies have shown that companies that lose their data often go out of business. Many traditional backup methods cost up to 80% more than a cloud backup solution like Mozy.

This week, Mozy is celebrating National Small Business Week by reminding small businesses everywhere that there’s never a better time to back up online than now – to protect their business with an affordable online backup solution.

Small businesses are a major driving force behind the current U.S. economic recovery, and more small businesses are using cloud services to be more efficient, save money, and offer better service to their customers. Mozy is honoring small businesses in the U.S. by offering 10% off MozyPro® if they sign up for a one or two-year plan during National Small Business Week, May 20-26. (Use the promotion code mozySMB.)

“At Mozy, we celebrate small businesses every day,” said Russ Stockdale, General Manager of Mozy. “We hear story after story of businesses who were saved thanks to online backup, and feel fortunate to be helping many of them reduce the time and money spent on IT, allowing them to focus on their business operations and growth.”

With millions of users, including more than 80,000 businesses, Mozy celebrates a few of its valued business customers who have use MozyPro to help their company grow:

Bone-a-Fide Dog Ranch. Lauren Rick learned from experience that hard drive failures lead to data loss. Because of this, when she took over as owner of a dog care business she turned to MozyPro to protect her data. Watch Bone-a-Fide Dog Ranch’s story.

Pelindaba Lavender, a farm in the San Juan Islands, WA, had a fire in May 2009 that destroyed everything, including the company’s building, servers and business data. Luckily owner Stephen Robins was prepared with MozyPro and quickly rebuilt his business. Watch Pelindaba Lavender’s story.

PC911 is an eco-conscious computer business based in Las Vegas. They use retired ambulances that run on waste vegetable oil to visit customers to help “heal” their “sick” computers. Owner Chad Stone prescribes that all his business customers use Mozy. It’s one thing that is not negotiable with PC911’s service. Watch PC 911′s story.

Advance Insurance dealt with a burglary in its Las Vegas headquarters that could have ruined its business. A computer with valuable data was stolen. Thankfully, the company was using MozyPro to back up and so was able to easily restore the data and get back up and running. Watch Advance Insurance’s story.

National Small Business Week allows us to recognize the contributions small businesses are making every day – from the entrepreneurs who built the businesses, to the employees that make them go.

Buying a single share of stock typically costs nearly $40 more than the current trading price due to service fees. Like or dislike?

Cloud Adoption Approaching a Crucial Point

There’s a “tipping point” for cloud adoption, according to the CIO at Google, and it’s fast approaching.

Once that point arrives and companies enter the world of cloud computing, there’s no going back–it will become the standard for IT, according to Ben Fried, the search giant’s chief information officer.

An article in Midsize Insider takes a look at this issue and explores how midsize businesses and their IT fit into this new world of cloud computing. Is cloud adoption only meant for large-scale customers, or will it benefit “mom and pop” organizations? Have a look here.

Multitasking Too Much? Strap This on Your Head

Researchers are tapping into the brain’s signals to ease the downsides of multitasking and information overload, a growing problem in digital lifestyles, according to CNET.

A prototype of the device uses functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to sense changes in brain patterns that indicate a person is multitasking, and a brain sensor is strapped around the user’s forehead in order to more accurately record when a user is multitasking.

An interesting idea, but the sensor looks like a headband straight out of the ’70s American Basketball Association.

If you are part of a business, sooner or later you want to be able to collaborate on a database with a colleague or customer. In the past, the easiest way to share a small database was to create a spreadsheet and email it to your collaborators. While this isn’t the best method, it has withstood more sophisticated competition.

For many people, the spreadsheet is still one of the most popular low-end database applications. The rubric of a table of rows and columns is easily understood and can easily be used as a way to view records and fields of a database. Plus, you don’t need to design special reports to view your data entries, and you can easily sort your data without having to create data dictionaries or other database structures, just use the appropriate Excel commands.

But emailing attachments can get tiresome, particularly if you have more than one collaborator. Having a specialized service that can share this data makes it easier, and you always have the current version of the data you are working on. Enter the online spreadsheet/database service provider.

Using these online spreadsheet services is very straightforward: you either copy and paste data or take your spreadsheet and upload it to the service, after creating accounts for you and your collaborators. Then you can make changes via your Web browser, no other software is required. Some of the services allow for more bells and whistles. Setup time is minimal; your data is properly protected by the service and safe from harm. And you don’t need to learn any Web/database programming skills either.

Pricing and support

When you decide on the particular service, it pays to read the fine print about pricing. There are discounts for annual subscriptions on most services. All of these services have 14-day or 30-day free trials to get started, so you can get a feel of what is involved in manipulating your data and how easy it is to make changes, produce reports, and receive notifications. TrackVia has a free plan that is a great way to get started with these services.

The downside is that some of these services can be pricey, as you add collaborators or different spreadsheets. Each service has different ways to count actual “users”. For example, if you want to jointly edit the same spreadsheet with two others — that usually counts as a three-user license. But if you want others to just view your data but not change it, these users usually don’t consume additional licenses.

Customer support can be extra too. TrackVia, HyperBase, and QuickBase all include phone support in their offerings, and TrackVia actually emails you automatically with the name and phone number of an account rep should you need additional help.

Distinguishing features

Let’s touch on some of the services’ distinguishing features. First is how they notify you of changes to your file’s content. Some services give you more control over how they will email you when one of your collaborators has made changes. Another feature is publishing your data, if you want to invite others to view it. While this throws all hope of security to the winds, for less-secure information it is a great way to start a collaboration process. Some services can design very sophisticated reports while others show you your data in the familiar grid layout that Excel uses.

Another thing to look for is how each service loads your data: with some, you can upload an Excel file from your hard drive, while with others you have to either import a comma separated file or manually cut and paste your data from your spreadsheet. Why is this important? If you have more than a simple table of numbers, cut and paste will probably not work and you will have some cleanup to do after the import.

Finally, there is the consideration of how much control they give you over the look and feel of your data. Some of the services, such as TrackVia and QuickBase have dozens of pre-built templates to help you get started with organizing your data, such as client contacts, issue tracking, or expense reports. The others you are left to be your own designer.

One caveat: Web services are constantly being changed, especially prices, as the vendors tweak their offerings. This analysis is based on what we saw in mid-April 2012, so do spend some of your own time checking out particular features that are deal-makers or breakers for you.

Who says technology and nature must be mutually exclusive? As the spring season takes root and more of us can’t wait to replace stale office air with the sights and sounds of the outdoors, there are definitely some cool tech tools and apps that make the great outdoors even greater.

While burying your face into the screen of an iPad while hiking a portion of the Appalachian Trail seems counter-intuitive (and rightfully so), there are ways to enhance your outdoor experience with some digital assistance. Here are just a few apps and tools to keep handy while exploring your neck of the woods.

For the Birds

Available on Apple’s App Store for just $2.99 for a limited time (it’s regularly $19.99), Audubon Birds: A Field Guide to North American Birds offers thousands of photos of North American birds, and maps of real-time sightings, among other features and interactive functions.

From the developer:

The newly updated Audubon Birds app has all the right ingredients to enhance your birding experience. Now with eBird, you can experience the thrill of locating birds in real time with quick access to recent sightings, locations of notable and rare birds, and maps and directions to all the birding hotspots across North America. The best bird app just got better!

On the Right Track

A recent article in The New York Times discussed the osprey’s dramatic recovery in Queens over the last few decades and a banding initiative that allows wildlife managers and the public to track, via GPS, the movements of the grand birds with 4-foot wingspans.

That’s Knots

For those of us who enjoy the quiet challenge of fishing, the App Store offers a handy app that demonstrates how to tie different fishing knots. Animated Fishing Knots is just 99 cents and is a great way to familiarize yourself with the art and sport of fishing.

Quint: [talking Brody through making knots] Little brown eel comes out of the cave… Swims into the hole… Comes out of the hole… Goes back into the cave again… It’s not too good, is it Chief? [Referring to Brody's messed up knot]

iHurt

If you’ve ever seen an episode of the Travel Channel’s When Vacations Attack, you know a free-spirited bungee jump can go from “yay!” to “no way!” in seconds.

While there isn’t an app that can turn back time and allow you to go with your initial gut feeling of “this bungee instructor seems kinda distracted, maybe I’ll sit this round out,” there is an app that contains more than 30 first-aid topics, including CPR, bleeding, burns, choking, drug overdose, bites, stings and many more.

iFirstAid will set you back $2.99, but if you need it, it’s money well spent.

From the developer:

It’s simple one-line memory jogging format helps you act fast when you need it most, in a life or death emergency. But heaps of additional detail is always just one touch away.